Database: Teaching credentials blocked for 1,475

May 8, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 12:28 p.m.

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Alyssa Ann Johnson, 36, of Tustin, worked as an English teacher at Trabuco Hills High School. She was arrested in November 2006 and charged with having a sexual relationship with an underage male student. She pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and was sentenced May 2007 to six months in jail. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

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Carlie Rose Attebury, 32, of Orange worked as a music teacher and band director at El Modena High in Orange. She was arrested October 2008 on suspicion of engaging in a sexual relationship with an underage male student. Prosecutors said Attebury had sexual encounters with the youth at her home in Orange after he began mowing her lawn. Attebury was convicted in 2010 on counts including unlawful sexual intercourse and oral copulation of a minor under 16. She was sentenced to 16 months in jail. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, FILE PHOTO BY JOSH SUDOCK, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Daniel Duane Axtell, 41, of Santa Ana, worked as an English teacher at Talbert Middle School in Huntington Beach. He was arrested May 2007 and charged with molesting a 14-year-old girl. Authorities said Axtell groomed his student at Talbert Middle School and gained the trust of her parents by meeting them. During a two-month period, Axtell committed lewd acts and having sexual intercourse with the student in various locations, including hotels and his vehicle, authorities said. Axtell pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony counts of lewd acts on a 14-year-old child and first-degree burglary. He was sentenced to four years in state prison. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

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Christopher Micah Brazelton, 40, of Lake Forest, worked as a first-grade teacher at Woodbury Elementary in Garden Grove. He was arrested October 2008 and charged with sexually touching one girl in his classroom and grabbing another as she shopped for school supplies at a Walmart store. He was convicted on felony counts that included lewd or lascivious acts with a minor and sentenced this January to eight years in prison. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

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Daniel Eugene Havlik, 60, of Foothill Ranch, worked as a teacher at Stacey Middle School in Huntington Beach. He was arrested in November 2004 and charged with sexually molesting an underage male student from 1997 to 2000. Authorities said Havlik met the boy when he was his algebra teacher at Warner Middle School in Westminster. He pleaded guilty March 2006 and was sentenced to 16 months in prison. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, MEGAN'S LAW DATABASE PHOTO

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Lee Dinnie Henry, 62, from Lake Forest, worked as a teacher at Carr Intermediate in Santa Ana. Henry was arrested in November 2005 and charged with sexual molestation of a boy from the age of 13 until he was 16. He pleaded guilty to six counts, including counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and oral copulation with a minor under 18. He was sentenced in July 2010 to five years of probation. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, MEGAN'S LAW DATABASE PHOTO

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Naomi Perez, 34, of Brea, worked as a teacher at Saddleback High in Santa Ana. She was charged in August 2009 with having a sexual relationship with an underage male student from June to August of that year. Perez was also charged with vandalizing the student's car after their relationship ended. She pleaded guilty to all charges in June 2010 and was sentenced to 150 days in jail and five years of probation. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

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Aaron Edwin Westbrook, 28, of Irvine, worked as a teacher and an assistant girls volleyball and surf team coach at Capistrano Valley High in Mission Viejo. He was arrested in December 2008 and charged with having a sexual relationship with an underage female student. He was later charged with having a sexual relationship with a second underage female student and providing alcohol to both girls. He pleaded guilty to felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, oral copulation of a minor, administering a controlled substance to enable a felony, and six other misdemeanors. He was sentenced in July 2009 to 240 days in jail. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

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Hugh Scott Wilson, 53, of Fullerton, worked as an English teacher at Washington Middle School in La Habra. He was arrested and charged in January 2007 with sexually molesting two students, one boy from January 1999 to December 2000, and the second boy from January 2002 to July 2005. He pleaded guilty to four counts of lewd acts upon a child and eight counts of oral copulation of a minor, with an enhancement for committing lewd acts on multiple children. He was sentenced to five years in prison. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

Alyssa Ann Johnson, 36, of Tustin, worked as an English teacher at Trabuco Hills High School. She was arrested in November 2006 and charged with having a sexual relationship with an underage male student. She pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and was sentenced May 2007 to six months in jail. TEXT BY FERMIN LEAL AND SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

How prison time is decided

Teachers convicted of sex crimes against students have been sentenced to a wide range of time behind bars – anywhere from a few months to life, or perhaps no time at all.

Prosecutors say a number of factors come into play, including:

Whether the defendant pleads guilty before the case goes to trial

Whether the transgression is the defendant’s first offense

Whether the crime involves multiple victims

Whether there is substantial sexual contact

General sentencing guidelines for sex crimes:

Victims under 14: Mandatory prison time for sexually invasive crimes; up to life in prison if multiple victims or if prior convictions. For physically non-invasive crimes, court may give jail time and/or probation.

Victims 14-15: Perpetrator must be at least 10 years older than victim to be charged with felony, unless force was used or victim under fear or duress. Court given wide discretion on sentencing; prison not mandatory, unless force, fear or duress.

Victims 16-17: Perpetrator must be at least three years older than victim to be charged with felony, unless force used or victim under fear or duress. Court given wide discretion; prison not mandatory, unless force, fear or duress.

These are three of 97 educators from Orange County who either lost teaching credentials or were blocked from getting them over the past five years for crimes against students, as well as for a bevy of non-school-related crimes and other improper conduct deemed unbefitting an educator.

In the most egregious instances, the defendant committed a sex crime against a student, violating the trust that children and their parents place in educators to maintain a safe, nurturing learning atmosphere.

But in other, less publicized cases, teachers lost their licenses for non-school-related conduct, including lewd acts in public, drunk driving, embezzlement and attempted murder.

The Orange County Register has created a searchable database of these educators dating back to 2007, in what is believed to be a first-of-its-kind presentation of how the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing handles teacher misconduct cases.

The agency isn't on the front lines – that's the role played by law enforcement and school districts. But its role is critical in preventing those who cross moral and legal lines from ever again harming children in schools.

"We are uniquely placed to take action so that people who have engaged in serious misconduct do not go into a classroom in a different area," said Nanette Rufo of the credentialing commission's Division of Professional Practices, which handles misconduct cases.

California has about 300,000 active educators holding credentials. Discipline issues involve a tiny fraction of them, with the CTC reviewing about 5,000 cases a year, and taking action on about 800.

The Register's database includes more than 3,500 California educators whose cases were reviewed by the commission since January 2007, many of whom faced discipline measures ranging from private admonishment or probation to credential suspension or revocation. From 2007 through 2011, 1,475 individuals either were blocked from receiving credentials or lost them after commission review – 855 of them for being convicted of certain sex crimes or drug abuse involving minors.

Some 368 educators had their credentials suspended after being formally charged with crimes.

ANY CHILD SUSCEPTIBLE

Teachers who commit sex crimes against students represent some of the worst offenders on the state teacher credentialing list.

"I've seen hundreds of cases, and they affect all sorts of families – rich, poor, divorced, straight-A students, you name it," attorney David Ring said. "It's all about the perpetrator finding his victim."

Ring represented two former students at La Habra's Washington Middle School who were repeatedly assaulted sexually by eighth-grade English teacher Wilson in his classroom.

The teacher, who pleaded guilty to all charges, built a rapport with the boys, getting them to come to his classroom for one-on-one help with school work, Ring said. Once there, he would lock his classroom door, close the window blinds and fondle and engage in sex acts with them, Ring said.

"When it was going on, they didn't know how to make it stop because this was their teacher," said Ring, of the Los Angeles firm Taylor & Ring. "Living with that deep, dark secret takes an emotional toll. They want to tell, but they don't know who to tell and don't know the implications."

Ring said one boy did not come forward until high school; the second did not come forward until he was a young adult. Both experienced severe clinical depression and anxiety, and one was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, Ring said.

Both filed civil lawsuits, Ring said. The first boy to be assaulted was unable to recover damages because of a statute of limitations; the second student got a $1.1 million settlement – $850,000 from the school district, and $275,000 from a Fullerton dance studio where additional sexual contact with the teacher occurred, Ring said.

For some parents whose children are victimized by teachers, the pain is too much to bear.

In January, Garden Grove elementary teacher Brazelton was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexually touching a girl in his classroom and grabbing another's buttocks at a store. He had been charged with sexually touching four others.

During his sentencing hearing on Jan. 23, one girl's mother said she still had not talked to her 9-year-old daughter about what had happened.

"We don't talk about it," the mother told the Register. "My daughter's in counseling. I let her open up (about the abuse) on her own.

"He gets to get out in eight years," the mother continued. They "have got to take this with them for the rest of their lives."

Marissa Ramirez, a former parent at Orange's El Modena High, remembers how the school community struggled to cope in 2008 with the arrest and conviction of band director Carlie Rose Attebury for engaging in a sexual relationship with a male student. Although Ramirez's daughter was not directly connected to the case, Ramirez said the school felt betrayed by Attebury.

"A parent's worst nightmare is that their child becomes a victim of a sexual crime," Ramirez said. "It's even more frightening to think that the crime would happen at a school."

BAD APPLES A TINY FRACTION

While the actions of Orange County's worst teachers are reprehensible, education leaders say these individuals represent a tiny fraction of the teaching population – and that to focus on these bad apples would be a disservice to the thousands of hardworking teachers.

"People who go into the profession go in with the best intentions of serving the public," said Michael Stone, a board member for the 325,000-member California Teachers Association. "For every one accused of misconduct, there are scores of others who sacrifice so much of their own time and energy for the betterment of the community."

Even so, some are calling for tougher laws to provide students more protection from their teachers.

Los Angeles school officials paid Berndt a $40,000 settlement in February in exchange for him not appealing his termination to the state. He is awaiting trial on charges that he spoon-fed his semen to blindfolded students.

"You see laws designed to protect teachers like" Berndt, said state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar. "Why do we go so far to protect adults at the hands of these kids?"

Huff introduced a bill this year that would give school districts the final authority to fire educators accused of a broad range of crimes and unprofessional conduct, bypassing the state authorities, where it can take months to finalize an action.

A more narrowly tailored, competing bill authored by state Democrats, however, trumped Huff's bill and is making its way through the Legislature.

That bill would grant final firing authority to school districts in a more narrow set of circumstances – where the teacher is being investigated for sexual abuse, drugs and violence.

Stone of the state teachers union characterized all such proposed legislation as an unnecessary, "knee-jerk" reaction to the Miramonte uproar, which he said resulted from a failure of the district administration to take appropriate action, not a failure of existing laws.

"Teachers should not have their rights stripped away simply because the LAUSD superintendent failed to notify parents and the community in a timely manner of a problem teacher," said Stone, a teacher at Aliso Viejo Middle School.

Ron Wenkart, chief counsel for the Orange County Department of Education, said school districts can best protect children by properly screening prospective teachers. However, finding all the relevant information from a person's past can sometimes pose a challenge, he said.

All Orange County public school teachers and nearly all teachers in private schools undergo background checks at the county education department headquarters prior to their hire, Wenkart said.

The process involves a fingerprint screening called Live Scan, run through state Department of Justice and FBI databases. However, the process only flags criminal convictions. Accusations alone, or arrests that don't lead to convictions, won't show up.

Districts have to take it upon themselves to follow up with the teacher's previous employer to see if there were any issues present when that person worked there, Wenkart said.

Because of the amount of time needed to follow up with each potential new hire's previous employer, districts don't always have the time or resources to take those precautions.

WRONGLY ACCUSED TEACHERS

By law, a teacher charged with a serious or violent felony must have his or her teaching credential suspended, even if the case hasn't yet been adjudicated.

During this time, these educators are barred from returning to their jobs, and sometimes stop receiving a paycheck.

The 2011 case of former Cypress high school teacher Christopher John Ontiveros is a case study in how accusations alone can harm a teacher's career and reputation.

Ontiveros, though, still could face a jury – the girl's family also filed a civil lawsuit in 2010 against Ontiveros and the Anaheim Union High School District. The civil case is set to go to trial in September.

Some teachers maintain their innocence even after they've been convicted of crimes against students.

But Attebury, now 32, admitted that she had had sex with two graduates of El Modena High, after they turned 18 and were no longer in high school.

Attebury was sentenced to 16 months in prison; she has maintained her innocence and is appealing.

"These other sexual relationships she had, whether they were good judgment or bad judgment, had a huge impact on what the jury believed," said Attebury's attorney, David R. Cohn. "At the time, I don't believe she saw the adults she had sex with as bad judgment.

"But as a result of going through the case and realizing how it may have impacted her life and theirs, I think 100 percent when she reflects back on it, she realizes it was bad judgment on her part."

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